VIP PARTS TIRES & SVC

Prior to purcahsing the tires, I called to set up a time to come in and asked how long it would take. The associate (John) said that depends on what I was having done. I said "mount the tires." He asked if I wanted them balanced and aligned. I said "tell me what it cost." His answer:

"regular install: $141.92, plus alignment would add $82.99, or there is the 'lifetime package' with balancing, rotation, changing to snow tires for $271.99." I told him I wanted the no frills mount, balance, and dispose of old tires.

When I arrived they told me it would take about an hour and they would start right away. John took the keys without showing me the work order and I left to do some shopping. I came back 45 minutes later they had my car up on the jacks with the hood open (!) and had not even started mounting the tires. A guy came out of the shop and proceeded to show me a "Multipoint Inspection Form" which I had not authorized and proceeded to inform me that my shocks were bad, my ball joint needed replacing (which was not news to me but this is not what I came to VIP for) and that my transmission and steering fluid needed replacing. He used scare tactics about how some procedure needed to be done according to scheduled maintenence every 20,000 miles and how "no one would touch it" if I didn't get it done soon. Even though I wanted to tell him to stop wasting my time and get on with mounting my tires, I sat down in the waiting room and waited. And waited. And waited. While I was waiting I overheard several phone conversations from an associate's side, where a customer was calling to ask what something cost and the associate was trying very hard to "upsell" and convince the customer they needed to spend and additional $50-$100 for "safety" or some kind of promise of service if needed in the future.

Finally after 1-1/2 hrs they had finished putting on my tires, I signed the work order, also was intimidated into signing their "inspection form," paid and went out to my vehicle. Since I didn't trust them at this point I checked my valve caps. Sure enough, the expensive ones I had had on with brass threads that looked like dice were gone and had been replaced with inferior cheap plastic ones. I returned back inside and demanded my valve caps back, which I got. John told me rather lamely that new valve caps were part of the standard "service."

When I got home I took a good look at the "work order" which had a $61.96 charge for "road hazard." It also had a $14 charge for "valve or TPMS cap/core." my vehicle does not have a tire pressure monitoring system, so I went out to check if they had replaced the valve stems. Five years of road grime told me that these were the same valve stems I went in with.

The next day I returned to the VIP store and first went to the shelf to see what the plastic valve caps cost that they had charged me $14 for without asking - they cost $1.49. I approached the counter with the package and asked to speak with Steve, the manager. I told him I wanted to talk with him about my experience the previous day and get his opinion. I began with the $14 charge for the valve caps. He replied that this was a "service" so the cost was higher. And besides, he said, they had replaced the valve stems. I replied that it was news to me that brand new valve stems came with five years of road grime on them and perhaps he would like to come outside and see for himself, maybe run his finger on the valve stem and THEN tell me if he still thought that his mechanics had put on new valve stems. He checked one and agreed that it was not new. I invited him to check the other three which he declined.

We went back inside and talked further, away from the counter. By this time John, the associate who had handled the sale the previous day, had vanished from the counter area. I asked Steve whether he would have written up a work order the same way if a customer said they wanted a no frills tire mounting. He said no, it would have been $80 more (!) because of the alignment he would have insisted on. I asked him if he approved of the practice of writing out work orders that have upselling charges that the customer doesn't want and not only did he agree with the policy, he tried to chide me for not letting VIP do an alignment for $80!  He went into a spiel about how I needed to do this for my own "safety." I requested that he leave his concerns for my "safety" out of the conversation so we could get on with the real issue, and he started to chew me out for not being polite enough to him. I pointed out that he was wasting my time and that all he was going to accomplish was to waste more of it and get me even more angry.

Finally he asked if I would be ok with him removing the $14 charge for the cheap plastic valve caps and the $61.96 for the "road hazard" which I didn't want in the first place and had no intention of using. I said I thought this was the least he could do. We returned to the counter where it took about 15 minutes for him to type in whatever he needed to type in to reverse the charges. While we were there, a gal at the counter tried to convince me that they had indeed put shrader valves INSIDE the valve stems. I have difficulty believing that they in the metal parts but left the rubber outer part.

After the unwanted charges were refunded, in the amount of$75.96 he asked if they could do the 25-50 mile re-torque and I replied that I am not going to let any employee of VIP auto anywhere near my vehicle again, that I have and know how to use a torque wrenchand furthermore that they are STEEL rims and do not NEED re-torquing unless they had failed to torque the nuts to the proper N-cm inthe first place.

I wished them a nice day and left.